Virtually every day there is another scare story out of Washington, quoting city officials about the hellish conditions people will encounter if they dare to come there for Barack Obama's inauguration.
Trains will be hopelessly jammed. If you make it there, you won't be able to move. You won't be able to bring anything, such as a backpack or a stoller (if you're criminally negligent and want to subject your child to such danger). You won't even be able to find a pot to pee in.
I don't care. I'm going.
My wife is going too, and so are our teenage daughters, 15 and 17. We're ready. We're psyched.
We won't have to pay thousands of dollars per night in rent, as some poor blighters are. My brother and sister-in-law live in Bethesda, Md., within walking distance of a Metro station. Yee-ha!
This much is true: if I were elderly, I would not venture into this madness: more than a million people pressed together on the Mall. If my kids were 10 or younger, I wouldn't bring them there. But they're premier soccer players; they know how to throw their bodies around.
I'm not saying we will be comfortable. I'm not saying we are going to "see Obama" in the flesh. We will be looking at the giant screens, along with just about everybody else.
But we'll be part of history.
And perhaps best of all: we'll be able to wave bye-bye to Bushie! Our worst president ever will look out onto a sea of citizens waving and saying, "See ya! Heckuva job, Bushie!"